Facebook Introduces New Newsfeed Algorithm

A recent announcement states that Facebook changed its online strategy to show you more videos similar to the ones you watch in full screen, un-mute or choose watching in HD. They are keeping a close eye on what you are interested to see, in order to make the best suggestions for its entire pool of users. The change already launched for some of the users and will continue to unfold over the next weeks. This shapes not only which videos we see but how high up they appear in feeds as well.

Video placement will highly depend on users likes, shares, in fewer words, popularity. The update represents a new take on a change that started last summer, able to report and analyze whether someone has watched a video and how long they watched it, helping to determine ranking and selection for videos, as well the optimum number of videos for display.

Facebook’s understanding of which particular videos are popular and which are useless for people, allows the giant social media company to grow its view count. The aim is perfect dissemination, targeted to the right group of people at the right time and with the highest level of accuracy. The general view count of Facebook has already reached four billion videos per day. This comes as an enormous upgrade, as September last year came with a report of only one billion videos on a daily basis.

This is not the only change Facebook has proceeded with, as the giant social media company has also been adjusting the way it prioritizes other types of posts. The company announced that the amount of time spent on particular stories will influence which posts show up in our news feeds.

Videos are currently one of the most important revenue rivers for Facebook. The Facebook count for video algorithms starts at three seconds, including views of auto-play videos. The social media giant follows the YouTube example, which succeeded to hit no less than 4 billion daily video views in 2012 only. The figures are increasing and Facebook takes advantage of a new trend that could bring billions in profits.

Digital video advertising is a freshly profitable market in the US and is expected to rise 30%, to $7.77 billion this year only, according to eMarketer. Of course Facebook, Google and other famous companies are highly interested to get their share of profits from the newly established river of money.